A wireless communication system includes at least one base station and a plurality of wireless transmit/receive units (WTRUs). FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a conventional base station 10 and WTRU 20. A base station 10 provides numerous services to a WTRU 20 via a wireless connection. The services include voice communication services, packet data services, paging services, and audio and video services. The particular services available at a particular base station are typically specified in the base station's beacon signal. The various services often differ widely in required bit rates, allowable delays, and tolerable error rates, etc. The quality of each service is dependent on different factors depending on the nature of the services. These service-dependent factors have an impact on the signal strength requirements that are needed to satisfy the associated quality of service (QoS) requirements. For example, a low bit-rate packet-switched connection used for web browsing on a personal data assistant (PDA) requires much less signal strength than a high bit-rate circuit-switched connection used for a video conference. This means that a user may not be able to receive certain services in a certain location. A user in a given location might be unable to use certain services which require more signal strength, while less demanding services could still be provided to the user.
A WTRU is normally configured to display the level of power of a signal received from a base station using a bar graph as illustrated in FIG. 2. The display is normally related to the highest power level of a signal received from a beacon channel from the nearest base station. This diagram indicates the quality of a connection between a WTRU and a base station. However, a user cannot estimate from this diagram whether a particular service may or may not be supported with a minimum QoS until the user actually tries to establish a connection for a particular service. If the service is not supported at the location, such blind attempts at establishing connections are a waste of time for the user, and impose unnecessary signaling traffic on the radio network.
It would therefore be desirable to provide service availability information to users in wireless communication systems.